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N J resìdentsadd 7% tax PERSONALIZED CARTOUCHE Your name or initials translated into ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphics Free Brochure Available Cartouche shown ane" 18k Gold Pendant from $150 Sterling Silver $40 1-800-237-3358 1} 207 Ramsay Alley, Dept NY1 Alexandria VA 22314 (703) 548-9448 (m VA) HANDMADE IN EGYPT j admit she had not heard it-"I know I should," she added. Though the noisy disco at the Hotel Uzbekistan was filled with women in miniskirts, mainly Russians, a Tashkent cabbie pointed out long white head scarves- symbols of Islamic modesty-being worn by young Uzbek girls milling out of a school as the more prevalent fashion craze. At Friday prayers on the Muslim Sabbath, the wailing muezzin at the Central Mosque, in Old Tashkent, drew overflow crowds. It was one of the few mosques that had been allowed to remain open during Communist rule, in part because it was controlled by the Spiritual Directorate of M us- lims of Central Asia, headquartered across the street in a majestic fifteenth- century complex with a beautiful azure tiled entrance and a courtyard filled with roses. The Spiritual Directorate was in turn controlled by the Kremlin. The authority of the Directorate, however, has become a source of dis- pute in Central Asia; internal struggles and intrigues have weakened its clout. The scuttlebutt in Tashkent over the past year has centered on accusations, made by other mullahs, that the Directorate's chief mufti sold for profit some of the one million Korans that Saudi Arabia had donated for free distribution. The mufti managed to survive a mini-putsch last summer, when he was defeated in an election held by other government-backed mullahs, who were responding in no small part, I was told, to the grow- ing pressure of Islamic activism. Uzbekistan's Communist government declared the election illegal and forc- ibly put him back in power, but neither move really restored his authority. Scandals aside, the Directorate's real problem is that it is seen as "official" Islam-that is to say, it is supported by the local Communist Party-at a time when the wellspring of support is for "unofficial" Islam, which has been busy since the nineteen -seventies or- ganizing cells to wage a secret war against totalitarian and atheist rule. Abdullah Ismailov, the chief of the Directorate's international department, was working in a cubbyhole office facing the courtyard. A small man who frequently perfumed his black goatee and mustache from a gold-topped flacon while he talked, Ismailov outlined the dimensions of Islam's growth. "Three years ago, there were about eighty APRIL 6, 1992 mosques in all Uzbekistan," he said. "Now in the Namangan region alone there are more than a thousand, and Namangan is only one of twelve Uzbek regions. But things are growing so fast that this figure can be obsolete in one day." (Other estimates claim that an average of ten new mosques are open- ing daily in Central Asia.) In a niche in Ismailov's office was a quotation from the Koran in six languages- Russian, Arabic, English, Uzbek, Farsi, and French. "In the name of Allah, most gracious, most merciful! Let there arise out of you a band of people inviting to all that is good, rejoining what is right, and forbidding what is wrong: they are the ones to attain felicity," the English version read. When pressed, Ismailov said he favored adopting Islamic law, eventually. "Yes, I want it," he said. "But you have to learn Islam to start to want it. When enough people know the Sharia, they, too, will want it." Yet Ismailov told me that he deeply opposed mixing mosque and state. "Certain religious teachings can't be a political force," he eXplained as he poured me tea N or did he want a theocracy to replace the Communists who are still running Uzbekistan, and he distanced himself from the Islamic Renaissance Party, which had emerged from the underground in 1990. "I'm not acquainted with their charter," he said, trying to dismiss the subject. "I'm far from the issue of the political struggle. If they're planning to defend the interests of the Muslim population, which is the majority, then I welcome them. But if they're trying to get power for themselves, and use Islamic slo- gans to do it, I'm against it. It's not necessary to have a religious leader as head of state. Do you consider the United States a Christian state?" The }\.merican Constitution sepa- rates church and state, I replied. "Is your President a believer?" I said yes. "Well, it's no different here," he said, with some irritation. T HE future of Islam may be better judged at the Higher Islamic Institute, a madrasah, or seminary, in Old Tashkent. Like mosques, madra- sahs are proliferating in Central Asia, and enrollment is soaring. In a simple classroom with vintage wooden desks, I talked to four mullahs-to-be, all in their middle or late twenties, who had